Evaluation of the mechanical and erosion resistance qualities of composite materials exposed to the LEO space environment

摘要

Numerous flight experiments conducted during last 23 years aboard "Salyut" and "Mir" orbital stations within the framework of Russian and French scientific programs on assessment of the behavior of structural materials in the low-Earth orbit (LEO) space environment with a maximum time of exposure of 1501 days (4.1 years) are presented in this paper. It is shown that typical mechanical characteristics of exposed polymeric composite materials (PCM) change by only 15-20 %, whereas their moisture diffusion properties have a drastic degradation depending on the type of surface protection. Test procedures are described for determining experimentally the values of the diffusion parameters. New criteria to range the performance of structural materials in a space environment according to their erosion resistance qualities are suggested.